When you make $2.13 an hour, it’s really important.

Tracy Brasseur serves as a waitress at Leo’s Coney Island restaurant in royal oak, mich., every Friday, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Although she earns only $3.52 an hour, the minimum wage for a “tipping” worker in the state, she brings home about $500 a week, thanks to the tips.
But more recently, the 46-year-old mother has become more serious.
A construction project near her restaurant led to fewer customers through the door. Her full-time income has shrunk to about $250 a week.
“My landlord doesn’t care if we have a building behind the restaurant,” says Brasseur. “They want the rent.”
Advocates and workers recently celebrated Labour’s decision to support its proposal to allow employers to use some workers’ tips.
The updated law now allows tips to be Shared between non-tipping workers such as cooks and dishwashers. But it does not include a manager or an employer, only applicable to all workers paying the normal minimum wage in the area – not the lower hourly rate paid to some tipping workers.
Now, labor advocates have focused on a more familiar struggle: the complete abolition of wages. Although the federal minimum wage has been rising for decades, the federal minimum wage has been frozen at $2.13 since 1996.
Some states have raised their wages to more than that, but only seven states guarantee the same minimum wage for all workers.
Across the country, people are working on the One Fair Wage.
Andrew cuomo, New York’s governor, announced this year that he was holding a hearing to eliminate the lower hourly wage for tipping workers. Michigan and Washington, d.c. It is also considering setting a minimum wage for all workers.Sylvia a. Allegretto, economist and chairman of the center for wage and employment dynamics at the university of California, Berkeley, said: “we haven’t seen this before.
Cicely Simpson, executive vice President of the national restaurant association, said it was fair to raise wages.
“The service level of the server is often higher than the minimum wage,” Simpson said.
However, critics of the so-called two-tier pay system say it exposes tipping workers to levels of poverty and financial uncertainty.
Although many people might think of high-end restaurant tip workers, but often charge $20 bill after the meal, the vast majority of restaurant staff work in the large chain stores across the country, such as Danny and s&p than o.
According to the economic policy institute and the university of California, Berkeley, wages and employment center of dynamic joint report in 2014, nearly 2014 reports 13% of workers in a poor state, but not receive wages, nearly 6% of the employees in poverty.
These problems are likely to be exacerbated by more workers living in restaurants. According to Allegretto, while private sector employment increased by 33 percent between 1990 and 2016, full-service restaurant staff doubled.
The labor department plans to increase its food and beverage jobs by 14% from 2016 to 2026, higher than the average for all occupations.
“These jobs are getting richer and they’re becoming a bigger part of our economy,” Allegretto said. “We have to think seriously about higher pay, but the quality of those jobs.”